How damaging is the XL Meat ecoli crisis to consumer food safety confidence?

Every night for the past week I have been watching the Canadian meat industry get aggressively criticized by all of its opponents.

I know that the ecoli contamination is a very serious issue and it needs to be addressed by XL Foods and the whole industry but the damage to the whole agri food industry is going to have long term negative consequences for the whole Canadian food sector.  I am not sure XL is doing any of us much good by only releasing a statement with no real person steping forward to say sorry.

How do we do a better job of food safety and how do we communicate more effectively with the consumer.

How does everyone else feel and what can we do about it?